Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare


The 10th ASEAN-Japan High Level Officials Meeting on Caring Societies
Closing Speech Outline
Thursday, October 25th, 2012, 17:30PM
Shinagawa Prince Hotel

Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, at the closing of this tenth(10th) ASEAN-JAPAN High Level Officials Meeting on Caring Societies, I would like to express my appreciation for your participation.

First, I wish to express my gratitude to all participants from the ASEAN member states, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea, the ASEAN Secretariat, the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, the ILO Office in Japan, JICA and experts from a wide range of fields. Thank you for sharing your precious experience and information through your presentations and in discussions.

Your cooperation and support have made it possible for us to have extremely meaningful exchange throughout this three-day meeting.

At this tenth meeting, we exchanged information and experience under the theme, “Caring societies for the socially vulnerable suffering after natural disasters”.

Japan learned a number of meaningful lessons supporting the socially vulnerable people in the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11 last year, which was a quake of unprecedented magnitude.

I consider this meeting quite successful as it was able to provide a common ground to share lessons and experience for natural disasters that may occur in the ASEAN member states.

In order to reduce disaster risk to socially vulnerable people, it is necessary to improve the safety nets in communities beforehand so that it may function immediately after disaster strikes.

In addition, the development of community support systems thorough Public-Private Partnership among health, welfare and labour sectors is a common challenge for all participating countries.

I am convinced that this meeting has been a good opportunity to discuss measures to tackle the problems.

I am confident that the recommendations we have adopted here will be applied in the development of policies in each country. The conference report will be utilized at the ASEAN+3 Health Ministers Meeting and Ministerial Meeting on Social Welfare and Development.

I would like to conclude my remarks by wishing everyone success and prosperity.

Thank you very much.


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